Eugene von Bruenchenhein, an untrained “outsider artist,” worked in various mediums including photography, painting, drawing, and sculpture as well as poetry. For these ceramic vessels, the artist painstakingly gathered clay from construction sites, removed the impurities, and fired his work at home in his oven. Hundreds of clay leaves are assembled into tower-like structures and then painted in a variety of colors, thus merging natural and architectural forms. Made for what the artist called “love of creation,” they were intended to be used to hold dry flowers or as incense burners.